Page:Letters of Life.djvu/25

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
HOME AND ITS INHABITANTS.
13

gratuitously in Latin and Greek, as well as in the more essential branches of a solid education.

In the course of his extensive business he employed a variety of clerks, whom it was his choice to domesticate under his own roof. Their moral and intellectual habits were to him, and his estimable lady, objects of interest. Indeed, to their conscientious minds they were in some measure as children, for whose right principles and good conduct they felt responsible both to the world and to God. Perhaps they were in no instance so signally baffled in these philanthropic efforts, as by Benedict Arnold, known in his country's history as the traitor. Being the son of a widow, they received him at rather an early age, and cherished for him added sympathy. Strong capacities and strong faults were soon revealed. Among the latter was barbarity to every form of animal life. Dogs avoided him for good reasons; cats never flourished where he dwelt; it was thought that horses were none the better for his ministrations, unless it might be for habits of break-neck speed and marvellous kicking and prancing. Dismembered birds were found lying about the premises, of whose state no satisfactory solution could be obtained. The blue eggs of the robin were crushed and strewn upon the turf, and the voice of the mourning mother resounded among the branches.

"Methinks," said the kind lady in whose house he was fostered, "her cry is 'Cruel Benedict Arnold!